The complete source for building, designing, and remodeling green homes
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Cool Walls Are Coming
If you have traveled to the tropics or Mediterranean, you may have noticed the predominance of light-colored walls. Solar-reflective, or cool walls, have always existed with light-colored exterior finishes. These…
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The Living Building Challenge Comes to Vacationland
The expected completion this fall of a new home for The Ecology School in Saco, Maine, will not only mark a big step for the school but also the first…
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Insulating a Slab with Rigid Mineral Wool
As builders in Prairie Village, Kansas we spend the majority of our time focused on substantial residential additions to add second or third stories to existing homes or to expand…
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Time to Give Straw Another Look
Mention straw bale construction, and while many have heard of it, the majority of people still reply with skepticism: “Won’t it rot?” “Doesn’t it burn?” “What about insects, moisture, air-tightness…”…
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High-Performance Window Install
When I first started installing windows in the 1990s we were using Tyvek HomeWrap as our water resistive barrier (WRB) and made the now-infamous X-cut at our windows, folding the…
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Straightforward Air Sealing Strategies
I built my first home for a customer back in 2000, I’ve learned a lot since then. One of the areas I’ve learned the most is in building tightness. These…
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Webinar: All About Double-Stud Walls
Following up on popular articles here on GBA and in FHB, Dan Kolbert and Ben Bogie of Kolbert Building in Portland, Maine sat down with us for a more informal…
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Best Practices for Dry, Healthy Basements
Growing up in New England, I thought that all houses had basements. Whether it had a dirt floor and stone walls or was a nicely finished space, in my mind…
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Where Does the Heat Pump Water Heater Go?
I installed my first heat pump water heater about eight years ago for a client whose roof was not appropriate for the solar hot water system I wanted to use.…
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Webinar: Walls That Work–An Intro to the Four Control Layers
There's more than one way to build a durable and efficient wall. Like most things, the devil is in the details—and in this case, the details refers to the four…
